2010 BMW M3 - Project M3 Makeover Part 9

How To Turn Off The EDC Warning Light After Fitting Coilovers.

In part 8, we prepared our Project M3 for appearances at MFest and Bimmerfest with a Vorsteiner carbon fiber trunk and front splitter, Wraptivo carbon-look roof wrap and fitted H&R coilovers.

As we explained, we’d ordered the suspension from Turner Motorsport months before but hadn’t fitted them because we were enjoying the M3’s optional Electronic Damper Control (EDC). The fully adaptive system in the M3’s Competition Package gave us the luxury of relative comfort at the touch of a button. However, we wanted to tuck the tires more, so finally fitted the coilovers.

The car certainly looked considerably more hardcore, and the ride comfort was barely affected thanks to H&R’s chassis expertise. Perhaps the only downside was a “suspension failure” warning light on the dash and iDrive screen.

You can cancel the lights every time you start the car but it becomes a pain to do so and passengers are concerned by all the dire warnings. So we decided to work with BMW specialists European Auto Source (EAS) in Anaheim, CA to finally silence the system.

EDC Emulation Module
Partners, Tom Guagliardo and Steve Lee established European Auto Source in ’05 to offer a range of services to BMW owners. They have an extensive inventory of parts, a lift to install them and a dyno to verify tuning. With both electronics and engineering backgrounds, they also develop private label projects for many large tuners, utilizing 3D CAD modeling for the development of production items.

The guys work closely with Macht Schnell, a company with a large range of specialized products for the BMW community such as intakes, strut braces, seat mounts, engine pulleys, etc. In addition to the hardware, Macht Schnell has developed a number of control modules such as TPMS and EDC emulation modules.

These units are designed to help tuners who have changed the OE wheels and suspension, respectively. The TPMS module allows you to avoid the annoying low tire pressure warning you get if you change your wheels and tires. Of course, you can transfer the TPMS sensors into your new wheels, as we did in et 1/11. However, this isn’t always feasible, especially if you have multiple track wheels, etc.

The EDC module will turn off the iDrive warning as well as the damper fault light on the dash. As a gateway module, it essentially intercepts the signal from the ECU that’s trying to communicate with the stock adjustable dampers. It then changes the signal to convince the ECU they’re in place, so the car retains all its functionality for steering wheel sensitivity, etc.

The company is also working on a OC3 module for people who fit race seats and don’t want the airbag warnings; as well as a boost module that will display pressure on the OE instruments.

Fitting
The installation is straightforward thanks to supplied instructions. It should take a DIY enthusiast about 30min to fit if you’re confident with wiring.

The first step in the trunk is to remove the passenger side panel and pull back the insulation to access the cage holding the stock EDC control unit. Remove the cage and unplug the large white and blue plugs on the top. You need to access individual pins in these plugs, so you will need a pointed pick tool.

Photo 5/11 |
1 Remove the side panel, pull back insulation and unscrew the cage that houses the EDC module

The steps are explained in the photo captions, but the Macht Schnell (MS) module has four wires. The red and brown wires bring power to the MS module from the white plug. Using supplied Scotchloks, splice into the car’s harness with the red (+) wire to pin 1 and the brown (-) wire to pin 6.

Remove the blue cover from the smaller plug to access its wires. Using your pick, push the wires out of pin 14 (blue/red) and pin 15 (red).

Then take the wire in pin 2 of the MS module and push it into pin 14. The wire from pin 10 of the MS module goes into pin 15.

Finally, the two wires you pulled from the OE plug need to go into the MS module. So take the blue/red wire (from pin 14) and connect it to pin 11 in the MS module. The red wire (from pin 15) goes into pin 3 in the MS module. This is achieved with a two-pin plug provided in the Macht Schnell package.

Hopefully, it will make sense when you’re looking at the photos and have the MS module in your hand.

Once the Macht Schnell module is correctly wired, a green LED will flash on the unit. The dashboard and iDrive warning lights shouldn’t appear when you start the ignition – you may want to drive a few yards to check this before refitting everything.

Next Month
We’re reaching the end of the road for Project M3. Our year with the car is over and it’s heading back to BMW. We did manage to test the new exhaust from BMW Performance recently, so we’ll have that in the next issue.